A fellow-traveller on the steamer knows the life here and has been assuring you that the climate is delightful: that no one ever takes cold; that windows never are shut; that the same weight of clothing can be worn the year around; that the foreign colony is agreeable, the hand-made lace is pretty and durable, and the best “drawn-work” simply exquisite. Six strong men row you over the two miles to your ship. Outside the reef it is rough enough to keep you very still in your little boat and glad to exchange it for a steamer, and you wonder if you can be quick enough to catch the ladder as the wave lifts your boat to meet it. It has seemed to you the last few minutes that the miracle of Peter walking on the water was being repeated several times about you on that rough sea, only these modern sea-walkers have a mast and a bench. It is really the fishermen’s catamaran, a raft constantly washed by the sea, navigated by a sail. The ship is as familiar a home now as you can remember, and you think you know everything that can happen to you there. You have loaded and unloaded freight, listened to the noise of the ice-manufacturing, the dumping of the ashes from the furnace-room in the early morning, and the daily scrubbing down of the decks at 4 A.M. You have watched the crew go through the fire drill and the drill of manning the lifeboats. You have listened to the Captain’s stories of helping disabled ships in mid-ocean, and the heavy expense of it, and learned how they signal their distress with rockets. You know Sunday in port and Sunday at sea, how to count the “bells,” and change your watch daily to the new time. But while you are eating the first half of your dinner that night you realize that you are an object of interest to your next neighbor at table, a _bon vivant_ who has made this journey many times before. You cannot think what is the cause of his suppressed excitement. You like the fresh vegetables that have come aboard and remember your childhood when you look at the new bouquets which decorate the tables--such old-time solid pyramids of posies. At length dessert is reached. The steward brings a whole pineapple, lifts its cap (the entire outside), reveals the juicy inside cut in slices which you taste. Now you know what your neighbor wanted to see, your surprise and delight in the Pernambuco “pines,” the abacaxi (abà-ca-shee). Make the most of the abundance of this ripe, rich-flavored, tender, fiberless fruit here, for you probably won’t find anything else that tastes so good. TWO BEAUTIFUL BAYS. It is two days from Pernambuco to Bahia. The ship does not keep in sight of land, for coast currents are not safe.